


A Sight I've Never Seen

by 13thSyndicate



Category: Free! Iwatobi Swim Club - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Haru's magical world, The final relay of S1, first-person narration, rin's pov, things I write for prompts, what Rin saw that day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 09:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11159454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13thSyndicate/pseuds/13thSyndicate
Summary: Four participants, one after the other, in a single lane, in order, each performing a different stroke to race for the gold. Medley relay. Simple, a direct concept, easy in theory but difficult to put into practice. You swim with a team, but when you're in the water, you're alone. It's solitary and you push and you push and then you're done and it's the next person's turn and you're calling out their name and yet....Somehow, it isn't like that.





	A Sight I've Never Seen

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a writing prompt - "Re-write your favorite scene from some media you like, in such a way that I know why you love it."

When you push your body to the limits, things begin to slow, to become indistinct. Nothing exists but the sound of your breath, the motion of your body, the pounding of the heart in your chest. When you push yourself to the maximum of you energy and endurance, mind and body both become one, and separate. That's what I always thought the pinnacle of achievement was, in sports – whatever sport it was, that point where mind and body meld to the point where thought and motion don't seem like such distinct things anymore.

Then I met _him._ And everything _changed._

'I don't care about winning or times,' seemed to be his catchphrase. That, and, 'I only swim _free_ ,' using the English word as if its strange double-meaning had some third, even more esoteric one, a meaning only he could feel.

'I'll show you a sight you've never seen before'. I meant to push him to that limit, that place where mind and body are one. And I did. But I pushed... into something past that.

Swimming with Haru... it's an experience that words can't really describe. But for my own sake, I'm going to try.

When he turned those words on me, I didn't know what he could show me that he hadn't already. I didn't understand that he, himself, knew of the strange and wondrous place he brought others to... or the magic that would happen when all of us swam together.

Four participants, one after the other, in a single lane, in order, each performing a different stroke to race for the gold. Medley relay. Simple, a direct concept, easy in theory but difficult to put into practice. You swim with a team, but when you're in the water, you're alone. It's solitary and you push and you push and then you're done and it's the next person's turn and you're calling out their name and yet....

Somehow, it isn't like that.  
  
Makoto leads us off, leaping backwards into the water and his powerful, rough stroke is incredible every time I see it. Beat, beat, arms cutting water, legs hardly making a splash as they propel him and somehow the expression on his face is more intensely focused than I've ever seen as he powers out of sight. He reaches the wall, kicks off, turns, returns to us, and somehow, the water moves in slow motion. The water is slow, he is slow, the other swimmers are _slower_ , because as slow as he is its the slowness of a methodical, powerful speed that rushes by so quickly it defies explanation. Time itself is bent in this place. The cheers echo around us and somehow when he reaches our side again, the expression in his eyes beneath his goggles is _serene_. His hand touches the wall and I hear the call - “Nagisa!” - that signals the other to leap and dive. He cuts into the water and the stroke he uses, breast, pushes quickly through the pool's resistance. He's never been this fast before, but how? All of their training has paid off, but where does that leave me? I can barely see him, an energetic yellow blur. He hits the opposite awall and once again makes the turn, and I hear the crowd screaming and cheering, the insistent chanting ( _“Ike, ike, ike Nagisa!”_ ) of their coach and fans and my sister all urging one more ounce of speed out of him. Nagisa always makes up time on the turn and this makes him faster than ever, and I mount the block as he approaches. The fierce joy in his eyes beneath the goggles leaves me breathless – just what sights is Haru showing us this time? He isn't even leading us, isn't ahead in the lane, and yet I can feel him there, a steady presence, behind me, around me, urging me forward. I mount the block and I hear the crowd go silent ( _what is he doing here, isn't he a Samezuka swimmer, what are you doing)_ and then scream out in worry and wonder and frustration and I feel the energy and Nagisa touches the wall and then my feet push off the block and I'm in the water and pushing forward and there is nothing but the pool and me and the wall and _speed_.

My stroke, the butterfly, is technically challenging, but I am a master of it and I push forward through the water. I reach the point where mind and body are one, and then somehow push beyond and I realize, _this is what they were seeing_. Because there's no more lane. No more wall. No more anything but _speed_ and there isn't even the air above me, nothing but me and endless water. Somewhere distant I can feel my body, pushing, screaming, eking out every last drop of strength, but that place and this place are not the same. I am breathing the water, panting, racing, energy thrilling through me. Ahead I see them, things I have only glimpsed before, years ago, in a medley relay where we once took a trophy. An orca, beating its tail, rough, powerful, breaking the waves and leading the way for the others, a penguin, darting, fast, energetic, playful, zipping here and there and tugging at my spiritual self, come, Rin, you can do this, pulling me, faster and faster, and for a moment, I am not a human, not a creature of the land, but perfectly at home in the water, my arms as they beat the surface in front of me not arms but fins, and I am strong. The wall comes in that place that is not this place and I hit it and turn, I know it cannot be as long as it feels but I feel as though I could float forever even as I feel that this place is rushing me forward, and I see it in front of me, sleek, powerful, a creature of intense freedom, a dolphin leading the way – it was there all along, is there all along, and as I push forward I can sense him, his spirit flowing through the water and into me, I am a creature of the land but he was born to be a creature of the water.  
  
The illusion, the spell, breaks and I touch the wall and I scream ( _Haru!)_ and he leaps, as graceful as that day long ago and I wonder when he hits the surface what he sees, what he feels. The crowd is screaming, everyone is cheering, and then just like that, he is at the wall, the fastest person I've ever seen, a person I would give anything to spend just another second I the same pool with, as a partner or as an enemy, because he is the one we all look to, our water spirit, the one who shows us _the sight we have never seen before_. He is racing back, rushing towards us now, and then his hand hits the wall and the crowd erupts out of their seats, we've won, we've done it, the race is over and we _won_ and we are a team once again. And then Nagisa is yelling and jumping on us and Makoto is wrapping his arms around everyone and _he_ is standing there, silent, like he always is, not looking at us, staring off into a world seemingly only he can see and I realize it, that was his world, that _is_ his world, that place beyond effort where only spirits and magic live, where there is no winning or losing or times or scores but only the water and us.  
  
Aftermath. They are disqualified for taking me with them. But it is worth it. It is always worth it.  
  
I will keep swimming. One day I may surpass him. One day, I might see that sight all on my own.


End file.
